High-Risk Drinking Among Female College Drinkers at Two Reporting Intervals: Comparing Spring Break to the 30 Days Prior

Abstract

Alcohol use has increased among college women in the past decade, and although event-specific high-risk drinking is common among college students, few studies have focused on Spring Break-specific high-risk drinking and other risk behaviors among female college drinkers. As such, we compared substance use (e.g., alcohol and marijuana use) and engagement in other risk behaviors (e.g., riding with an impaired driver) in the 30 days prior (T1) and during Spring Break (T2) in a sample of 86 female college drinkers (mean age = 19.9, SD = 1.3, 18–23 years). Participants were recruited on a public beach during their Spring Break vacation and were administered a survey that included the TWEAK, a brief screener to identify alcohol use disorder (AUD) risk. Initial results indicated that heavy alcohol use, riding with an alcohol-impaired driver, and marijuana use were high during T1 and increased significantly during T2. The TWEAK results indicated that 78% of respondents were at high AUD risk, yet only 25% felt the need to reduce their alcohol consumption. OLS regression results indicated significant relationships between changes in engagement in risk behaviors at T2 as compared to T1 across a number of sample characteristics and TWEAK indicators (e.g., age at first drink; age at first sex). Implications for prevention programming targeting female college drinkers are discussed.